Photon-enhanced thermionic emission (PETE)[1] appears as a promising technology for electric power generation from renewable resources. Its combination of photovoltaic and thermionic effects leads to devices which can operate at high temperature through thermionic emission still exploiting efficient electrons promotion through a semiconductor band gap when it is chosen as a cathode. However, th...

Real-space imaging of full-morphological, angstrom-scale structural dynamics occurring on the femtosecond (fs) timescale is possible with ultrafast electron microscopy (UEM) via the stroboscopic pump-probe methodology enabled by interfacing an otherwise standard TEM with a short-pulsed laser system [1-3]. The technology has matured to the point that commercial systems, such as the FEI Tecnai Fe...

Diamond-based thermionic emission devices could provide a means to produce clean and renewable energy through direct heat-to-electrical energy conversion. Hindering progress of the technology are the thermionic output current and threshold temperature of the emitter cathode. In this report, we study the effects on thermionic emission caused by in situ exposure of the diamond cathode to beta rad...

We introduce an application of thermionic emission in a PMT photocathode. Because of the nonlinear dependence of thermionic emission on absorbed laser power, a conventional PMT is found to produce a virtual pinhole effect that rejects unfocused light at least as strongly as a physical pinhole. This virtual pinhole effect is exploited in a scanning transmission confocal microscope equipped with ...

Solar-energy conversion usually takes one of two forms: the 'quantum' approach, which uses the large per-photon energy of solar radiation to excite electrons, as in photovoltaic cells, or the 'thermal' approach, which uses concentrated sunlight as a thermal-energy source to indirectly produce electricity using a heat engine. Here we present a new concept for solar electricity generation, photon...

A general model is presented for electron emission yield from planar photocathodes that accounts for arbitrary cathode thickness and finite recombination velocities at both front and back surfaces. This treatment is applicable to negative electron affinity emitters as well as positive electron affinity cathodes, which have been predicted to be useful for energy conversion. The emission model is...

A new thermionic cathode has been developed and installed for use on the PEGASUS plane wave transformer injector. The novel design of the LaB6 cathode allows for thermionic emission as well as photoinjector operation. Both test-stand measurements and in situ operational experience are reported.